The Wall
by P.H. Wise
Summary: Spoilers for Neverwinter Nights 2: MotB. Female main character. Hope oft' finds roots in strange soil, and eucatastrophe has a way of finding the cause of the righteous. My own take on the ending of MotB.


The Wall  
by P.H. Wise

Disclaimer: I don't own Neverwinter Nights 2. That would be... oh, a whole host of people who aren't me, one of which is likely Wizards of the Coast, another of which is probably Atari.

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It rose above her terrible as the dawn, the smell of dissolving souls clinging to it like stale perfume on a corpse: The Wall of the Faithless. Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, she had fought her way here to the city of the Dead, where Kelemvor sat in judgment over the souls of the Faithless. The crusade had been a long and bitter one, but it was over now, or nearly so. Within her, the power of the soul-eater writhed. Only Kelemvor stood before her now. Only a god.

A god.

Kelemvor was speaking, but she hardly noticed. "You will NOT! You may free your own soul, unjustly bound here, but the Wall will stand for all time."

She listened as the god made his argument. Listened as the god argued that without the threat of the utter dissolution of their eternal souls, mortals might forget the gods altogether.

She looked upon the god, and in her heart, she found the god wanting. "If it is only the threat of destruction which makes them worship you," she said, "Then you don't deserve their worship."

A note of urgency entered the god's voice. "You must listen to me, mortal. I will not allow you to do what you desire. Try, and I will simply will you out of my plane. You cannot win against me. The field is lost. Now, will you go in and save your own soul, or will you have me banish you?"

A sense of weight settled over her, and all around, the armies of her crusade watched, waiting for her to make her choice.

Her choice.

She looked up, and in that moment, her words echoed in sympathy with that First Rebel from so long ago, who hurled headlong flaming into the abyss, had sought to make a heaven of hell: "What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the study of immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield, and what else is not to be overcome?"

His expression grieved, Kelemvor raised his weapon. "Goodbye, mortal," he said.

The Soul-Eater writhed within her, begging, pleading, yearning to be freed, and in that moment, the god-man, Akachi reborn, let slip the keys of her heart: power flared around her, and the god had bare seconds to realize that anything was wrong at all before he was destroyed, and utterly destroyed. There would be no corpse to haunt the Astral Plane for Kelemvor of Faerun: his very existence was snuffed out like a candle flame, undone by the power of the very Wall which he had sought to protect.

The soul-eater feasted.

It seemed to her that the whole array of the gods hovered there before her. It seemed to her that every eye in the cosmos was upon her as the shockwaves of Kelemvor's death rippled across the Fugue Plane. She smiled, and she raised her sword, shining with a holy light. "You're afraid," she whispered to the phantom gods. "I'd thought you so mighty, but I see now: you are not divinity. Your power is undeniable, and yet you are pretenders. You are parasites - parasites which feed on human souls. And you would rather see those souls destroyed than risk that we might one day realize... we don't need you."

"You can't do this!" the host of the gods seemed to shriek.

"And you have revealed to me your deepest fear. I therefore sentence you to be exposed for what you are to those you so desperately sought to control, who are not your creatures at all, but your peers. If there be true Divinity, then it knows as sure as I that my cause is just." She brought down her sword. "TEAR DOWN THE WALL!"

It was done, and the gods trembled in their sanctuaries as the eucatastrophe - the good cataclysm - rolled across the land. The eagles had come, and the souls of those imprisoned poured out of the broken Wall full of sudden, overwhelming hope, screaming their hallelujahs to the stars.

The End

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Author's note: Because I hated the original ending. Hated hated hated hated hated hated hated it. Hated it. There's probably a million of these, but this one is mine.


End file.
